Revenge Recap: Whoa! Baby!

Little Man Porter showed up a little earlier than scheduled in this week’s Revenge, but fortunately he arrived after his mom’s impromptu, stripper-filled baby shower. Also, given these preview pics, I was prepared for another all-out Jack breakdown – little did I know, we’d also see some waterworks from Nolan and I-have-no-tear-ducts Emily. But whose big emotional moment resonated the most? Read on as we review the major developments in “Intuition.”

KARA IN CONTROL | At the beginning of the episode, Emily confronts Aiden about visiting her mom, but he makes it seem like the detective alias he used was actually someone from Americon Initiative. He reiterates his wish for her to stay away from Kara, saying that she “better be prepared” for what she might find – then he hightails it back to Em’s mom, who notes that “You were an American the last time you were here.” (Heh.) The story he now spins involves him being an FBI agent who’s trying to help her, but when she won’t cooperate, he pulls a gun and calls her “Mrs. Clarke.” Seemingly cowering in his presence, she tells him that the initiative was coming after her and Victoria and that Gordon Murphy (aka the White Haired [She Doesn’t Know He’s] Dead [Yet] Man) was keeping them safe. Speaking of safes, she tells him Gordon has locked away a portable hard drive containing all kinds of information. She gets it for him (I totally thought she was going to pull a gun out of the safe and was disappointed when she handed over the drive so easily) but as he’s plugging it into the computer, she tazes him from behind. (Yes!) He comes to tied to a chair, and Kara drops the scared act: She says she knows he’s not working with her “husband” (side note: WHAT!), and that means he’s employed either by the Graysons or the initiative. She leaves him bound and gagged, saying that she’ll either come back with Gordon or not at all. Eventually, the Brit manages to knock his chair over and use a shard of broken glass to free himself. He immediately calls Emily, but gets her voicemail — she’s busy, for reasons we’ll get to later. He warns her that her mom is loose and possibly coming her way.

SIGNED, SEALED DELIVERED | Conrad says he’s going to Miami to calm some antsy investors, but he’s really traveling to meet up with a female member of the initiative and basically have the same conversation they had last episode via phone. Anyway, the trip gets him out of the house for the Baby Shower of Strippers and Sadness that takes place later. But first, a little set-up: Victoria wants to know more about what’s in David Clarke’s (fake) journal, so Emily sends new roommate Amanda over and gives her an earbud via which Em can feed her lines. Thanks to the Graysons’ new security system (and the Nolcorp-related software it runs on), Em can also watch the action unfold in pretty much any room in the house. Victoria asks how much Amanda wants for the journals, Emily-via-Amanda says she wants to know the truth about her mother. Victoria says David told her Kara died in a mental institution when Amanda was little, and “Perhaps a similar fate awaits you.” (Heh.) When Charlotte walks in, Victoria pretends they were discussing a heretofore unmentioned baby shower that will suddenly take place the next day. Emily has Amanda agree to show up; at home, she shows Amanda the psych-ward sign-in that nearly proves Victoria is lying about never meeting Kara. Under Em’s orders, Amanda tells Victoria she’s reconsidered: She wants a $100,000 check for the journals – so Em can compare her signature to the fake name on the registry. (Side note: Is Victoria’s handwriting on record nowhere? I find it hard to believe that with Nolan’s help, Emily couldn’t have found it online in five minutes and somehow extrapolated “Clarke” from that.)

THIS JUST IN: NOLAN’S GOT MOVES! | Emily’s techie pal is getting a scolding from Padma about not opening his mail when she comes across an old letter stating that his father’s stuff is in storage and needs to be picked up. She asks why he never mentioned that his father is deceased. “Because this is the first I’m hearing of it,” he says. Aw, sad Nolan! She later goes to the unit and retrieves a scrapbook labeled “Nolan,” in which his father collected news stories about NolCorp’s success. Nolan cries. It’s very sweet. Together, they travel to the unit, where she tells him, “It’s my job to take care of you.” Then he goes in for the kiss… and instead knocks over a tower of boxes and tumbles into a pile of the dead man’s stuff. Ha! It’s awesome. And also, given Nolan’s usual awkwardness, surprisingly hot. Who’s with me? (The magic happens around the 48-minute mark if you wanna watch it over and over, FYI). All-around solid work by Gabriel Mann this week. Also: Being that this is Revenge, there’s a better-than-good chance that Padma will turn out to be shady in some way. And being that I am a little in love with Noles, there’s a better-than-good chance I will have to cut her.

WHEN IT RAINS… | Amanda’s shower is the usual stuffy Grayson affair – until the lady of the hour shows up late with a few of her friends from the Beaver Dam in tow. (I laughed when Emily mentioned the club’s name, partly because I had forgotten about it and partly because I am 10 years old.) The final gift of the day is from Victoria: a baby journal with the requested check inside. Claiming she’s suddenly exhausted, Amanda says she needs to lay down and Vic escorts her to another room. Emily skips off to a bathroom to watch/listen/coach via her smartphone. Amanda pulls out the visitors’ log and says she knows Vicky made a looney-bin visit. They argue and move into the upstairs hallway, but interference messes with Emily’s surveillance, so she doesn’t see or hear what transpires next. Raise your hand if, once you realized Amanda and Victoria were on a balcony, you knew that preggo was going over the ledge. Just before she does, Vicky drops a huge bomb: “Your mother tried to kill you!” and tussles with the mom-to-be over the visitors’ log – Amanda yanks a little too hard and falls backward, landing hard on the floor below. There’s blood, there’s an ambulance, there’s Emily making a terrible call to Jack. The barkeep is dealing with Kenny, the guy whose stuff Declan helped steal in the previous episode, but he runs to the hospital to be with Amanda. (As it turns out, Kenny and Trey are working together to scam the bar away from the Porters.) At the hospital, Jack, Declan, Charlotte and Emily get the not-great news: Amanda is in a medical coma and the baby boy is in the neonatal ICU. Neither is assured a full recovery. But Emily is the one I’m truly worried about – when she slips off to see Amanda for herself, she finds Kara sitting by her unconscious “daughter’s” bedside, smoothing her hair and telling her, “It’s OK, sweetheart. Mommy’s here.” Emily has a flashback to being in the ocean with her mom and hearing her dad’s voice, which prompted Kara to dunk her underwater and kind of hold her there. Might this be the incident to which Victoria referred? Anyway, Emily slips away unseen and goes home, where Aiden finds her. She tells him to go away and beats at him a little with her hands, but it’s clearly just for show: If she wanted him gone, he’d be Dumpstered and ticket-stapled again in a Hamptons heartbeat. Instead, she collapses against him and sobs, and he holds her. It’s very brief but very heartbreaking. At Grayson Manor, Conrad returns home, sees the maid cleaning up blood and calls, “Victoria?” Anyone else hear that brief note of hope that maybe she wouldn’t answer? Heh. Queen Vic catches him up and tells him that Amanda “is very close to figuring out that I hand-delivered Kara to Gordon Murphy.” The plot thickens, no? Meanwhile, Daniel overhears Ashley tell Conrad that she’s done being his “little spy” and rewards her with some sweet, mouth-breathing-filled lovin’.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of this week’s episode? Did you think that Emily’s journal-based plan to get Victoria to spill was a little… unfocused? What were your thoughts about the outcome of Amanda’s accident? Do you think Daniel truly believes Ashley is on his side? Sound off in the comments!

Anyone else have a suspicious feeling that Padma might be working for the Initiative or in cahoots with some other evil organisation (not that there really is any “good” side)?? Also, I have a nagging feeling that the man Emily finds in the boat at the end of the season is Aiden… :(
As soon as Padma took the key, there were like warning bells going off in my head, and she just looks sus, or maybe it’s just the show’s intention to make everyone have I’m-a-shifty-person-and-you-shouldn’t-trust-me eyes.
I honestly think the chemistry between Nolan and Emily is better and Padma just seemed to have cropped up too suddenly. I think they should have had more of a back story and then revealed her evil plans (which I’m like 95% sure she has), she’s starting to remind me of Tyler, suddenly cropping up and being all evil.
And yes, I am a Nolan and Emily ‘shipper :D Haven’t really met anyone else that is one either… Most people are Jack and Emily shippers, which I doubt will happen unless she tells him the truth, because of the whole baby situation. And the baby is VERY CUTE!! :D

I think the body in the boat is going to be the man who’s trying to take Jacks bar, I also think that Amanda will live and the baby will die, making Amanda and jack get close together again, a baby doesn’t seem to fit in and I don’t think they’ll do the cliché thing of Jack being a single dad.

Ashley is definitely still spying for Conrad, or the higher power ‘American Initiative’

I thought Aiden posing as an FBI agent and claiming that Gordon was an agent too was kind of hair-brained, especially as he clearly thought Kara knew about his work. I had the feeling that I had missed a scene where we found out Gordon was posing as an agent to her. And does anyone else think that there’s got to be something else going on with Kara trying to kill little Amanda instead of just ‘oh hey she’s crazy’? And if Fauxmanda wakes up with memory loss, I think this show will unfortunately have strayed too far into soaplandia, especially as they already did that with Lydia.

Also, can Victoria please get a haircut?? That long straight/wavy thing doesn’t look so good on some people over a certain age.